University of Heidelberg

Interview with Leibniz Prize Awardee Joachim Quack

Feb 08, 2011

In this interview, Prof. Dr. Joachim Friedrich Quack talks about his research projects. The renowned Egyptologist has been awarded the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize 2011 -the highest scholary award in Germany- by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG).

The DFG honored Prof. Quack as one of the “world’s most eminent Egyptologists from Germany”. In total, it announced four women and six men as the award winners for the year 2011. Prof. Quack is the sole recipient from the social sciences and humanities. The prize giving ceremony will take place in March in Berlin.

Prof. Dr. Joachim Friedrich Quack is Director of the Institute of Egyptology at Heidelberg University and member of the Cluster "Asia and Europe", where he leads the research projects C1 "Medical Systems" and D7 "Oriental Cults".

Listen to the Interview in German (MP3 format)

Congratulations for being awarded the Leibniz-Prize, Professor Quack. What does this award mean to you?

It is a great honour. I am extremely happy and also somewhat proud as you can imagine. It is a very prestigious award and for me to receive this award is very gratifying for the Egyptology Institute in Heidelberg. We are celebrating our 100th anniversary this year and being the first German Egyptologist ever to receive the Leibniz-Prize gives us even more reason to celebrate.

       

The Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft emphasizes that your research work opens a window from which we can view the Graeco-Roman epoch of Egyptian cultural history. Why are you focusing on this epoch?

In this epoch many different cultural traditions come together. The Greek conquest meant that a foreign power with substantial new population groups came into the country and, while these Greek conquerors were dealing with the traditions of their new home country, simultaneously the Egyptians were being influenced by the newly imported traditions of their conquerors. This resulted in a multitude of complex cultural interactions, which are extremely interesting to trace.

Furthermore, the volume of unpublished material in text form from this period is extensive. And there is much potential and need for ground work to be done with this material. I am at the forefront of a small group of researchers that are examining the primary sources from a temple library from this period. We hope that the research results will substantially advance knowledge in Egyptology and its related disciplines.

          

At the Cluster of Excellence “Asia and Europe in a Global Context”, you coordinate the research project “Medical Systems in Transition”. What are the core questions of this project?

The project is jointly operated by Ancient Near Eastern Studies and Egyptology. Professor Stefan Maul, project leader of the Ancient Near Eastern Studies, is also a holder of the Leibniz-Prize. The project focuses on medical systems that evolved in Egypt and the Ancient Near East over a longer period of time and that also had interactions with Greece.

We want to find out how the systems have changed. In older times, we can say for sure that the great ancient civilizations were dominant, but in the Hellenistic and Roman period we can see that the Greek ideas and practices were becoming popular. Greek medicine was now considered most modern, but nevertheless their ideas did not easily replace the old medical traditions.

We are particularly interested in the various interactions of texts from these periods: Did only questions of scientific quality and efficiency influence the choice of certain medical systems? Or did the prestigious image of a ‘higher’ classified culture or the question of political power also play a role?

Some subprojects are focusing on studying texts in detail. My own research is primarily concerned with healing cults and pilgrimage, especially in relation to an important unpublished papyrus which is here in Heidelberg. This papyrus contains an invocation of a significant Egyptian healing god.

         

Furthermore, you coordinate the research project “Oriental cults” at the Cluster. What are the research goals of this project?

This project is also a joint project, in this case together with Professor Christian Witschel from the Ancient History Department. We are looking at how certain cults that have spread throughout the whole Roman Empire and partly across its boarders -mostly in Roman times- have their origin or alleged origin in the Orient.

One focus of our research is on the cult of the traditional Egyptian goddess Isis. Establishing the connection between the Greek and Roman material and the Egyptian traditions is relatively easy in this case. Late Egyptian texts show that there are inner-Egyptian developments of the image of Isis. These quite logically and continuously lead to what we find in Greek and Latin texts.

Our second focus is on the Mithras cult. In the ancient world, it was believed that this cult came from Persia. However, in modern times it is highly debated whether it really originated in Persia and/or to what extent it is more a Roman invention or at least a substantial reworking by the Romans.

We need to look at the following questions: Are those cults, which are gaining in popularity, originally foreign cults? How do the Greeks and Romans adopt these cults for their own needs? How does this manifest itself in certain provinces of the Roman Empire where the Egyptian and Graeco-Roman gods were equally foreign? And to what extent do religious traditions, that were transformed in the Roman Empire, ‘return’ to the country of their origin and how do they then influence the cults there?

        

Which research topics will you now be able to focus on more given the monetary benefit connected with the Leibniz prize?


I will use part of the awarded grant to give myself more time for research work e.g. by financing some sabbatical semesters. I want to work on my personal papyrus editions – I have already mentioned a few of these during this interview. Furthermore, there are additional texts I want to look at; primarily one which has concerned me for about 15 years now, and I hope that with the help of the funding I will be able to complete it  more swiftly: the “Book of the Temple".

The “Book of the Temple” is an extensive handbook about the ideal Egyptian temple, its architecture, details of the rooms and how they should be located in relation to one another, details about the priests in general, their supplies, oaths that are sworn during the consecration, as well as details about official duties, staff numbers, and rights to several matters such as the erection of a statue in a temple or the embalming at the expense of the public authorities. In Egypt, this substantial manual has already been translated from an older language level to a younger one, and there is also at least one manuscript with a Greek translation.

So far, this material is mostly unpublished. Personally, I know of almost 50 different manuscripts which I found scattered around the world in a dozen different collections. The search is not yet finished. I hope that I can finance further research trips with the money and find some more of these documents. Following this, the work on the content will start, especially the translation with commentary on philological questions and the comparison with other textual sources and archaeological remains.

So this is the largest research object I want to focus on. Besides this, I have some further research projects which are in part connected with the SFB “Ritual Dynamics”, for example the revision of an important royal ritual and a book about Egyptian amulets and their symbolic meaning.

       

Will you also support junior researchers?

The Leibniz-Prize money is, as far as I see, also intended to support the work of young scholars and I am very happy to do this. I plan to launch certain projects to give other people the chance to work on and edit a text for the first time. Since there are only few people working in this area, it is not that easy to find qualified people, therefore I plan to offer scholarships for higher semester students. The financial support will enable them to come to Heidelberg and to benefit from teaching that will give them the necessary skills for papyrus editing. I hope that these students will become excellent researchers and that their high-quality dissertations will enable them to continue their work with further grant awards.

           

Professor Quack, thank you for the interview.  

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